Happy Hawkins Part 32

The pup had give up his chase after the train an' was comin' back the track to town, lookin' mighty down in the mouth--he had a purty prominent mouth, too, the pup had. He was a brindle bull; not one o'

these that look like an Injun idol, but a nice, clean-built, upstandin'

feller with a quiet, business-like air.

"Purty tough on the pup to be turned out to starve this way," sez I.

"Who's goin' to let him starve?" sez Bill. "Come here, old feller."

"Better look out," sez I, "bulldogs is fierce."

"So is men," sez Bill; "an' besides, this ain't no bulldog, this is a London brindle bull-terrier, an' a crackerjack. Look at the bra.s.s collar he's wearin'. This is ain't no stray. I'll telegraph ahead an'

see if they want him expressed."

Bill caught the feller at the next station, an' he telegraphed back that he'd been havin' trouble with the pup all along the line; an' if we'd keep him a month, he'd stop an' get him on his way back. He sent us ten dollars to pay expenses. I never believed that they could send money by telegraph before; but I saw the agent give it to Bill, with my own eyes.

We all went to the hotel for dinner, the pup lookin' miserable sorrowful. Frenchy was goin' to kick the pup out--he was a low-grade heathen, but he was big an' he didn't mind a little trouble now and again.

"If this dog can't eat here, neither can I," sez Bill, "but as for your kickin' him out, you 'd better pray for guidance before you tackle that job."

"Do you think I'm afraid o' that cur?" sneers Frenchy.

"Cur!" yells Bill. "Cur? Why you maul-headed, misshapen blotch on the face o' nature, what do you mean by callin' this dog a cur! I never saw this dog before to-day; but I'll bet ten to one that I can find out who his great-great-grandfather's great-great-grandfather was; an' I doubt if you know who your own father happened to be."

Bill was firin' at random o' course, but it looked as if he had hit somethin'. Frenchy was fair crazy. He pulled out his gun an' came chargin' down on us. Bill tried to get mine again, but I thought I'd better run it myself just then. I covered Frenchy, Frenchy covered Bill, an' the bull pup turned his back on us and looked down toward the depot, to see if his train was comin' back.

"Better put up your gun, Frenchy," I sez, soft as a wood dove, "or you'll get this office all mussed up."

Well, he knew me; so we arbitrated a little an' then we all went in an'

the pup et his dinner like any other Christian, payin' for it himself out of his own money. First thing after dinner, Bill went out an'

bought a gun of his own, an' I scented trouble. He wasn't old enough to shoot only from principle, not merely for practice.

The' was another young feller at Frenchy's with a lot o' hot money in his clothes. He seemed to have a deep-felt prejudice against fire, too, the way he was blowin' it in. When Bill came back, the young feller tried to buy the dog from him. Bill was polite an' refused to sell, givin' as the main reason that the dog didn't fully belong to him yet, but the feller pestered around until finally he offered Bill two hundred dollars for the dog.

"You ain't no fool when it comes to a dog," sez Bill, "but I'm givin'

you the honest truth. This here pup don't belong to me--though if I can buy him I sure intend to do it."

"How far would you go when it came to payin' for him?" sez the man.

"Well, I'd give two fifty for him just on speculation," sez Bill. "He's put together, this pup is; but I didn't suppose 'at you people out here in the cattle country would know enough about the points of a dog, to offer two hundred for just a fancy one."

"I don't know nothin' about the points o' that dog," sez the feller. "I never even saw a dog like that one before; but when I see a man willin'

to go the pace you went for this dog, I'd kind o' sort o' like to own the dog."

Bill got interested in the feller an' began pumpin' him for what he called copy. The young feller had punched cattle most of his life, blowin' in his wages at variegated intervals. About a month before he had slipped over to Laramie an' had gone against Silver d.i.c.k's game, winnin' over eleven hundred dollars. He said that Silver d.i.c.k was plumb on the square an' that he never intended to work again, just spend down to his last hundred an' then go an' play at Silver d.i.c.k's. Bill got a paper an' figured out what he called percents, showin' how an outsider was bound to lose to the game in the end; but most o' the fellers there had been up against d.i.c.k's game an' they took sides against Bill, tryin' to prove that they stood a show to win, until finally Bill give it up an' we started back home.

When we started home, Bill was still discoursin' about us Westerners.

He said that we wasn't nothin' but a lot o' children playin' games an'

believin' in fairy tales, that we never provided for the future, that we was allus willin' to risk anything we had on some fool thing that wouldn't benefit us none, an' so on until I got weary of it, an' after I'd took a shuffle I dealt him out this hand.

"An' the''s another breed," sez I, "that ain't nothin' but children an'

that's the writers. An idea comes along an' stings 'em like a bee, an'

they immejetly begin to swell. They swell an' swell until the whole earth ain't nothin' but the background for that bee-sting. They howl about it as if it was the most important thing in creation; but if you call around next week, you find that swellin' gone down an' they're howlin' just as fierce over a new swellin' where a different idea has stung 'em; ain't it so?"

"Not exactly," sez Bill; "for we set down our thoughts an' emotions while we're smartin' from the sting an' the other fellers can get the sense of 'em an' pa.s.s judgment on 'em in cold blood without gettin'

stung at all."

"Well, you landed there," sez I, "but the' wasn't one o' those fellers there to-day, who was a quarter whit more childish'n what you was. Talk about providin' For their future! Why, the way you went on over this stray pup, purt' nigh put you in the position of a man who didn't have no future to provide for, an' what in thunder good can this here pup ever do you, no matter what happens?"

The pup was sittin' with his head between Bill's knees, an' Bill pulled his ear a time or two, an' then sez, "I reckon you're right; the whole earth ain't nothin' but a kindergarten. We all play different games an'

when you stop an' look at it they all cost about the same in the end an' they all bring in about the same profit; but I'm glad I'm livin'

anyhow; an' I'm glad I've got this dog. I'm special fond o' dogs."

You couldn't help likin' Bill; he allus played in the open an' when he kept score, he give you all the points you made without fussin' over 'em; but I didn't like the look o' that new outfit on his hip. He was too impulsive to carry a gun, an' he was too young. Take it when a man has had some experience in gun-fightin', he gets purty sober over the effect of it; but a young feller--well, who on earth knows what way a young feller is goin' to jump when he gets touched up a little?

"That's a purty likely lookin' gun you got there, Bill," sez I. "Do you savvy how to run one?"

He took it out of his pocket an' looked around, but the' wasn't nothin'

in sight that needed killin', so he began to pop at an old single-tree lyin' about thirty yards away. The ponies were trottin' along purty jerky, but hanged if he didn't hit it four times out of six.

"It don't just hang to suit me," sez Bill, "but I'll learn it after a bit."

I looked at him a moment, but he was merely speakin' his mind, an' I sez: "Bill, where in Goshen did you get to be a killin' man?"

"Me?" sez Bill. "I never shot a man in my life, but I used to knock down gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s purty accurate, an' I've hunted big game in Africa an'

India. I don't want no trouble, but I'm set in my ways about dogs. It's a heap o' responsibility to raise a pup; but I'm goin' to give this one a fair show, an' I'm goin' to own him some way or another--I feel it in my bones that this here dog was sent to me. I had a dog, the livin'

picture o' this feller once, an' he traded his life for mine, out there in the Indian Jungle. Now don't ask me any questions about it."

That night after we'd got the supper things red up, Bill sez; "Now I don't want no one to punish this dog but me, till he gets his edication. I don't care a bean for a trick dog; all I expect him to learn is jest English an' a part o' the sign langwidge, so as he'll be pleasant company an' useful in an emergency. I'll pay for any property he destroys, but please don't punish him."

The pup was about fifteen months old when he came, an' at first he sorrowed a heap for his old boss; but purty soon he see that Bill knew more about dogs'n he did himself, so he just transferred his affections over to Bill. Bill never raised his voice, he never whipped him nor even threatened him; he just reasoned with him an' explained why it was necessary to learn the conventionalities o' polite society. It took him a solid week to learn that pup how to shake hands, an' yet Bill told us confidential that he was certain that the pup knew it all the while; but at the end of the week the pup gave in, an' from that on he was as eager for knowledge as a new-born baby.

Cupid was the name of the pup, engraved right on to his bra.s.s collar, an' when he set his mind on acquirin' an edication, he made me an' the Kid leery 'at he'd beat us at the finish in spite of our start. He could walk on his hind legs an' speak an' open an' shut doors an' wipe his feet on the door-mat an' roll over an' pray an'--oh, well he knew 'em all an' six more; but Bill said it wasn't learnin' the tricks that counted, it was learnin' to think for himself. Bill used to put obstacles in his way, so that the pup would have to cipher a while to figger out how to work it, an' this was what Bill called stretchin' his intellect to match his envirament. He was some the solemnest pup I ever see, an' it was kind o' creepy to see him come to the shack, open the door, slam it after him, wipe his feet on the burlap, look into Bill's face, an' give a short bark. This was to ask if Bill had any new jobs for him.

I had it all planned out that the pup was to sleep in the wagon shed; but this didn't look good to the pup, nor to Bill, neither. When night would come, Cupid would go through his lessons, eat his supper, an'

fling himself slaunchways on the wide bunk. He didn't weigh more'n sixty pounds, but they was the solidest sixty ever wrapped up in a dog hide. He wouldn't mind no one but Bill, an' it was all I could do to get room enough on the perch to hang on. Then Bill would open up his vau-dee-ville show, an' when he'd simmer down, the pup would begin to chase jackrabbits, which was the most devilish-lookin' sight I ever see. He'd lay there with his eyelids rolled up, an' his eyes turned inside out, givin' short barks an' jerkin' his legs.

"Bill," I sez one night, "I ain't no chronic coward, but doggone me if I want to be mistook for a jack-rabbit, an' have this bulldog sock his ivories into me."

"He ain't no bulldog," snaps Bill. "It looks to me as if you might learn purty soon that he's a brindle bull-terrier!"

"Oh, I know that all right, an' I'm willin' to swear to it," sez I, "but just now it's his teeth, not his ancestors, that are botherin' me.

If I'm to be mistook for a jack-rabbit, I ain't nowise particular just which kind of a bulldog is goin' to do the mistakin'."

Bill, he smiled sadly an' walked over an' stuck his naked finger right into the pup's mouth. I looked to see it bit off, but the pup only opened his eyes, looked foolish, an' tramped down another acre of imaginary gra.s.s; finally goin' to sleep again an' usin' my feet for a piller.

Talk about grit! That little cuss was willin' to fight any-thing that walked. We took him out to the herd one day, an' after he'd been kicked an' tossed an' trampled, he got on to throwin' a steer by the nose, an'

from that on it was his favorite pastime. He played the game so enthusiastic, that I finally sez to Bill, "Bill, you mustn't forget that Colonel Scott has other uses for these cattle besides usin' 'em for dog exercisers." From that on, Bill made the pup be a little more temperate in the use o' steers.

The muscles on that pup got to be like hard rubber, an' you couldn't pinch him hard enough to make him squeak. He allus took a serious view o' life except when the' was a chance for a little rough an' tumble; then his face would light up like an angel's. Pullin' on a rope was his idee o' draw poker, an' he could wear out the whole bunch of us at it.

Bill fair idolized him--fact is, we all thought a heap of him; but I'd 'a' liked him a mite better if the' 'd been more bunks in the shack.